If you flash everybody the same smile, like a Confederate dollar, it loses value. When meeting groups of
people, grace each with a distinct smile. Let your smiles
grow out of the beauty big players find in each new
face.
If one person in a group is more important to you
than the others, reserve an especially big, flooding smile
just for him or her.In Defense of the Quickie
There are times, I discovered, when the quick put-on smile works.
For example, when you want to engineer the acquaintance of
someone to whom you have not had the opportunity to be introduced. (In the vernacular, that's "pick them up.")
The smile's pickup power was proven for posterity by solemn
researchers at the University of Missouri. They conducted a highly
controlled study titled "Giving Men the Come-On: Effect of Eye
Contact and Smiling in a Bar Environment."15 (I kid you not.) To
prove their hypothesis, female researchers made eye contact with
unsuspecting male subjects enjoying a little libation in a local
drinking establishment. Sometimes, the female researchers followed their glance with a smile. In other cases, no smile.
How to Make Them Feel You "Don't Smile at Just Anybody" 117
Technique #29
The Exclusive Smile
If you flash everybody the same smile, like a Confederate dollar, it loses value. When meeting groups of
people, grace each with a distinct smile. Let your smiles
grow out of the beauty big players find in each new
face.
If one person in a group is more important to you
than the others, reserve an especially big, flooding smile
just for him or her.
03 (093-142B) part three 8/14/03 9:17 AM Page 117
The results? I quote the study: "The highest approach behavior, 60 percent, was observed in the condition in which there was
smiling." That translates into layman's English: "The guy came
over 60 percent of the time when the lady smiled." Without the
smile, he "made the approach only 20 percent of the time." So,
yes, a smile works for those who wish to pick somebody up.
However, in situations where the stakes are higher, try The
Flooding Smile from the first section and now The Exclusive
Smi